Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I do not support everything Ron Paul is proposing. I am pro-environment and I support regulations that protect the consumer from corporate abuses. I would not support the elimination of the Department of Commerce or the Department of the Interior. I would support the elimination of government programs that are based on collecting revenues at the local level, transferring them to Washington, only to redistribute the money back to the local level. That is wasteful. The selling of government assets and the privatization of some government services would be a major mistake that I won't expound upon at this time. The Department of Homeland Security needs to be eliminated.

Well, I am pleased to see that that Ron Paul has made graphs that summarize his proposals. Obama speaks eloquently, vaguely, and misleadingly about reducing the national debt. Obama, from what I have seen has yet to produce any graph summarizing how his proposed spending would achieve real deficit reduction. Obama is playing "smoke and mirrors". All that Obama seems to have proposed are reductions to proposed deficit spending falsely claiming that he is reducing the deficit. Spending will still exceed revenues. That is not deficit reduction.

Ron Paul, when interviewed before the camera gives a much better presentation than he does at the Republican debates. I would even conjecture that the debate moderators have bee working "around" Paul to focus on other candidates such as Romney.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

A growing concern has been the increased assertion by law enforcement that they have the ability to arrest people who are filming them, even in public places. This flies in the face all logic. Why should the police be able to film and tract someone for the purpose of collecting evidence to prosecute that individual, yet individuals are not allowed to similarly collect evidence that my exonerate them and/or demonstrate the use of abusive police tactics. This would seem to violate the First and Fourth Amendments of the US Constitution.

We supposedly live in a free society that is based on the rule of law where government is supposed to be transparent. The police should not have the ability to arbitrarily arrest members of the public for recording police under the guise of "obstructing law enforcement". If police can arbitrarily arrest people for vague assertions of "obstructing law enforcement" we now become a police state.

In the article "Are Cameras the New Guns?" Gizmodo writes: "In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube
videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is
gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to
record any on-duty police officer. .... The legal justification for
arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping
laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited.
..."

To me, it is unfortunate that Gizmodo uses the word "illegal" as if the action of recording is actually illegal and second that Gizmodo has not challenged the supposed legality. Furthermore, the issue before the public media seems to "privacy", As I have previously expressed; privacy is "dead" and the arguments opposing the supposed "illegality" should be based on the First and Fourth Amendments.

Particularly egregious is the phrase "obstructing law enforcement".
So it is legal for law enforcement to obtain evidence documenting your actions by
recording you, but it is illegal for you to have evidence obtained by
recording the police that might document your innocence and/or illegal
police behavior?!?!?!

Below are some recent headlines highlighting the trend towards the US becoming a police state.

Law enforcement is necessary to protect society from those committing crimes. The police do not have a right, especially in public places, to criminalize people so that the police can "hide" their actions from the "sunshine" of transparent government. When the police can arrest you for filming their actions to "hide" the truth, then we have descended into a police state. In the movie "V" there is a very prophetic quote: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."